toilets

The author captured the story of Loyabi, in Chhaor Union Parishad. This is her story of how she provided her family with access to better sanitation and improved their futures.

“I will teach my children how to read and write regardless of my difficulties in doing so.”

My name is Loyabi and I come from a very poor family of Mahadanga village in Chhaor Union Parishad. I was married to Abul Hassan, a man from my own village, at the age of 15. For several years our poverty did not prevent us from being happy. We were blessed with two daughters and two sons. However, when my husband was diagnosed with gallstones, I found I had to raise Taka 50,000/- ($630) for his operation.

We had no land of our own and lived on common land. I was able to collect some money by asking for assistance in different villages. I worked as a mid-wife for humans as well as cattle, bathed dead bodies before their burial and somehow put together the required amount of money to get my husband’s operation done.

Jitender is a four-year old boy with forward-thinking parents. Although it’s common in his village, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, for most people to defecate in the open, his parents have taken the lessons of the government’s sanitation campaign to heart. They know that open defecation spreads disease—so they construct a private toilet that hygienically isolates their waste from human contact. Nonetheless, a few months later, Jitender develops persistent diarrhea. He is often dehydrated, loses weight, and becomes pale. His immune system is weakened by multiple bouts of disease, and for the next several years he struggles with recurrent illness. He has trouble keeping up with his schoolwork, and, more perniciously, even though he ate more than enough calories each day, the diarrhea eventually caused malnourishment. He remains small for his height and suffers from subtle intellectual deficits that make it difficult for him to follow the teacher’s lessons even during those periods when he does manage to attend. Because of his low marks, his family isn’t able to fulfill their dream of sending him on to university. The village takes note of Jitender’s example and concludes that improved sanitation doesn’t provide much, if any, benefit. This is a fictional story; however, similar stories are being heard every day in South Asia.